I've Always Thought Comfort Zones Were Under-Rated
So what if I want to stay in mine?! (Warning: this piece contains boobs.)
This time last year, I sat for a topless Zoom painting session by Fallon Smalberg, better known on Instagram as @titty_pix. I had seen a competition crop up on her Instagram page; anyone who bought a pair of limited-edition tittyearrings would be entered into a draw to win a live painting of their tatas and, much to my shock (and slight horror), I won!
It hadn’t really occurred to me that I might win – I have never won anything before, unless you count a competition to colour in a picture of our school lollipop lady (true story) and the TG4 game show, Eureka! – and so it hadn’t really occurred to me that I would end up disrobing on a Zoom with Fallon, sitting at the desk in my nine-year-old stepson’s bedroom, because it was the room with the best light in the house.
I am not uncomfortable with nudity, so the very act of being topless in front of someone else was not necessarily outside of my comfort zone; I have done the Dip in the Nip and posed for Spencer Tunick, freezing said nips off in the wee hours of the morning on the Bull Wall. But there was something about sitting topless, virtually face to face with a stranger, for the guts of an hour that was… disquieting, to say the least.
I don’t remember what we talked about, just that Fallon has an incredibly calming voice and presence. I felt at ease, even as I tried to keep my shoulders back and down at all times, Triona McCarthy’s pre-Midday mantra ringing in my ears: “Your breasts should be like headlamps, lighting the way!”
(As you can see from the painting, mine are more like fog lights, aimed at an angle – all the better to preserve the visibility of oncoming drivers.)
I am not someone who ventures outside of my comfort zone all that often. I am not prone to spontaneity, instead preferring to make plans (and then, er, cancel said plans, which could in itself be considered spontaneous, couldn’t it? Perhaps that’s a reach).
I don’t like to feel nervous, or anxious, or indeed uncomfortable, if I can help it, even though I do believe that forcing oneself out of one’s comfort zone is a great aid to personal growth. I just can’t bring myself to do it.
I’ve been giving this a lot of thought lately, at home, alone with the baby, in the context of making friends in this not-particularly-strange new land. It is occurring to me, more and more, that I will have to actually put myself out there, so to speak, if I wish to make some friends with whom to spend my time, at least, outside of the circle of my sister and her friends (many of whom, to be fair, I do consider my friends now, whether she likes it or not).
It would be great, for example, to make friends with some people who have babies around Atlas’ age, for both of our sakes. I would love to have some friends who were freelance, or worked from home, with whom to have midweek coffees. I’d like to have a friend who likes going to the cinema, or someone who’d be interested in a trip to the mall, for no reason whatsoever.
The universally acknowledged truth that it is difficult to make friends as an adult is always there in the background, as a crutch, an excuse to explain away my hermiting myself away at home – but it’s also a truth that seems to assume some level of effort has been made, when for my part, due to Covid, sure, but also due to my own fear of discomfort, I can’t honestly claim it.
I did sign up for a music class. It’s for the baby, I told my husband, citing development and hand-eye coordination and other things I’d read online. But mostly it’s for me, in the hopes that some fellow lonely parent will catch my eye across the bongos (or whatever) and want to get coffee and discuss Love is Blind or James Baldwin or Lee Child or Fleetwood Mac or Britney’s upcoming tell-all memoir. (I contain multitudes, you know.)
Until then – it starts in April – I’m going to try to force myself to go to the Y. I did, after all, fork out for an expensive family membership; they have on-site childcare; and they offer all sorts of classes and a pool and a playground and surely, somewhere in its environs, there will be someone I can sidle up to.
Wish me luck.
P.S. On Beatrice’s recommendation, I have started to watch Reacher on Prime Video. I’m enjoying it a lot.
P.P.S. Our new episode is about plastic surgery! Listen to it below.